Tower Story -- Chapter 8

Chapter 8

With his hand covering his nose and mouth to block out the lingering odor, Bax stared at the scene in the auditorium and even with his increased Intellect, he was unable to figure out what he was looking at.  Or, more precisely, what he wasn’t looking at. 

All of the bodies of the Keeper recruits and Guides that had recently been lying inside the large room were gone. The smell remained, unfortunately, though it was much reduced from how horrible it had been when he’d been there what he thought was only hours before; he could be wrong, though, as he wasn’t sure if the rebuilding of his body with his Level-ups had taken more than a day.  Either way, even a day or two couldn’t explain away the fact that all the corpses were gone.

It wasn’t as if someone had come along and taken the bodies – because he was 99.9% sure there was no one left the Co-op, at least according to his brief search around the place after getting something to eat.  What was strangest, however, was that it was only the physical bodies that were gone, along with any liquid—or other stuff—that may have leaked out of them after their death.

In other words, whatever they had been wearing was left behind right where they had been before their bodies disappeared.  In short, the auditorium was filled with stuff – a lot of stuff.

Is this, like, loot or something?  He didn’t want to think of the clothing and weapons of thousands of people who had recently died as something as mundane as loot, but that was what he immediately thought of as soon as he began seeing it all upon his approach.  But it was also more than just what they were wearing, as he saw large piles of other things near where he remembered seeing Guides laid out near the central stage, as if their internal dimensional inventories had been emptied. 

As he began slowly picking his way through the empty robes and armor pieces, avoiding a sword here and there lying haphazardly in his way, he approached some of the Guide piles and started to go through them for anything that might be useful.  He paused momentarily as he realized he was essentially stealing from the dead, but he eventually figured that no one else was going to use it, so he might as well. 

Unfortunately, as soon as he tried to pick something up, he got a notification.

Warning!  Items directly obtained from murdered individuals, even if such murder was unintentional, cannot be possessed by the murderer or the murderer’s Party.

Bax stood back up from where he’d been starting to go through the pile, disappointed but was also understanding of the restriction.  He could only imagine that there had to be disreputable people even on worlds that prized their cooperation, so to discourage those types of people from murdering other sapient races, they wouldn’t be able to loot anything from them.  On top of what was likely a significant penalty for intentionally murdering someone, the benefits of doing so were nearly nonexistent.

He found that he could still move some of the stuff around, but as soon as he tried to pick it up, he got the warning every single time.  Leaving it all alone, he left the auditorium and resolved to come back at some time and gather it all up for a later time, perhaps for when the next cycle started and the Keeper recruits came back; for now, though, it was of no use to him.

Instead, he headed back out to the massive hallway and started to search through the rooms of the dead Keepers, as well as what he eventually found were the rooms for the Guides.  He’d found on his earlier search that each of the doors were unlocked, as if once the System acknowledged that they were all dead and sent him those notifications, there was no reason to keep them private any longer. 

Unfortunately, other than a few personal items that he could only assume that these people carried within their personal spaces when they arrived, there wasn’t much of anything to be found in these bedrooms.  Even the Guides didn’t have much more than a few knickknacks and custom spaces that appeared to be conformed to their race, with nothing else of note.  Having seen extra clothing and other important items in the piles inside the auditorium, he could only figure that they had kept everything personally with them rather than having a wardrobe or some such equivalent.

It only took him a few hours of quickly moving through thousands of rooms to search them all, thanks to his incredible speed, and after finding nothing of note or even remotely useable for himself, he moved on to the rest of the Co-op building, searching every nook and cranny for anything that might be accessible to him.  There was an Armory on his map that he visited and was tempted to break into after he was denied access, but he held off; it wasn’t that he didn’t think he could force his way inside, as he was feeling incredibly strong right now with his current Strength stat, but it was more that he was worried what would happen if the System detected him doing so.  It seemed to be watching over everything in the extradimensional space that the Co-op and the Tower were located, and he didn’t want it to suddenly lock him out of doing anything – such as getting food from the Meal Hall – if he violated the rules.

As for the Tower itself, he hadn’t actually seen it yet; at one end of the massive hallway was an enormous set of locked doors made of some material other than the stone that comprised the rest of the building, which his map labeled as the entrance to the Tower – but it was locked up tight, as well.  In fact, other than the classrooms, the physical training rooms, the auditorium, the Meal Hall, the leadership team gathering space, and the individual rooms along the hallway, there was only one place that was open to him right now.

The Archives.

Bax had put it off until his last stop, as he wanted to ensure there wasn’t anything he was missing elsewhere.  When he finally walked into what was essentially a large library, he was immediately drawn to the bookshelves and the books that were situated upon them, and he started quickly reading the titles along their spines.

Fundamentals of Party Mechanics

A Comprehensive History of the Retrogression System

Common Adventurer and Keeper Classes

Non-Class-Based Spell Catalog

Abilities for the Discerning Keeper

The Keepers’ Tower: Keeper Training in 50 Floors

Improving Magical Resonance

Typical Remnants and Their Dangers

Imbuing Magical Weapons and Armor

Retrogression Cycles

Monster Level Guide and Loot Tables

Proper Physical Aptitude Training Schedules and Exercises

…and the titles went on an on.  It wasn’t long until he deduced that, as far as he could tell, every single class he was supposed to attend for training at the Co-op was covered in these books.  Thankful that he had found Harvin and been given access to them, he knew that this might just be exactly what he needed to get out of there and to a world to help them – and eventually even reach Earth again.  From what he could tell, and based on what he had been told over the first couple of days he’d been there, he needed to complete all 7 of his Classes to finish his “Keeper Training” Task, which he was hoping would allow him to access the Keepers’ Tower.  If he then finished all 50 Floors, he suspected that he would finally qualify to be sent out of this training facility.

There were a lot of suppositions in all of that, including the System somehow knowing he had completed a class without a Guide to determine if he had been trained enough, but there wasn’t really anything else he could do at the time.  It was either study all of the books in the Archives, learning everything he needed to pass his Classes, or simply wait around for something to happen – and he already had absolutely no plans of doing nothing at all.

With that determination in place, he found a table and chairs tucked away in the corner of the Archives; in minutes, he was starting to take books off the shelves and stacking them on the table in anticipation of a marathon studying session.  After all, there was nowhere else he needed to be, there was nothing he could think of that that could occupy his attention or entertain him, and he was generally interested in learning more about the things that were teased during his first classes – so why not spend a few months absorbing all the information in the Archives?

As it turned out, he quickly discovered that it wouldn’t take months to get through the Archives.  Once he sat down and opened the book titled A Comprehensive History of the Retrogression System, prepared to hopefully read a good portion of it over the next few hours, he found that he had read the first page of handwritten text almost as soon as he focused on it.  More than that, he immediately comprehended what he read, which wasn’t always the case when it came to dry and boring history textbooks – at least from personal experience. 

Turning the page, he absorbed everything on the two pages facing him in no more than a second, so he kept going, flipping a page every 2 seconds or so, and an understanding of the Retrogression System and its origins gradually filtered itself into his head as he swiftly read the text in the book.  The history book was long at over 700 fairly thin pages, but he whipped through them in less than a half hour – and that was even after slowing down a few times when specific sections containing lists of dates caused him to take an extra few seconds looking them over and memorizing them with ease.

Shutting the back of the book cover down on the completed book, Bax sat at the table and processed all that he’d just learned about the history of the Retrogression System.  For a full minute, he ran through it all in his mind, recalling it perfectly; not just as words on a page, but with an understanding that went further as he comprehended and understood what it was he’d just read. 

I wish I had this ability back in school; I would’ve aced all my tests without fail.

However, in recounting everything he understood about the System’s history, he realized that there were gaps in the overall timeline that stood out starkly compared to the comprehensive descriptions of everything else.  It wasn’t his own failing, however, but an absence inside the book itself – though it wasn’t an intentional omission.  Instead, as he picked up another book from the bottom of his pile on the table, entitled Turmoil Through the Resurgence Cycles in the Retrogression System, he discovered that these gaps in the first history book were actually covered in more detail elsewhere.  It was a revelation that had him tearing through this next one with a determination to fill in those gaps in his understanding and comprehension of the System’s entire history from the start to the present time.

A few hours later, he finished the final book he could find in the entire Archive relating to the history of the Retrogression System.  He’d even checked the Restricted section where he’d found the now-useless tablet, but all that appeared to be in there were records of past Keepers and Guides from cycles reaching back millions of years, as well as books relating to forbidden experiments that had been attempted to minimize the monster threat in the past.  He'd idly flipped through some of them, finding that these experiments ranged from attempts at necromancy and blood sacrifices to using something called Magitech to destroy Towers, the latter of which had worked – but it also destroyed half a continent in the process.  They weren’t really relevant to the general history of the System, however, so he ignored these types of books in the restricted section for now.

As he closed the final book, he sensed his history knowledge of the Retrogression System solidify into a comprehensive whole.  While there might be a tiny gap here and there, he thought that these gaps were relatively inconsequential in relevance, and that he had everything he needed to easily complete the Retrogression History course if he were ever tested on it.

It seemed as though the System thought so, as well, because he received a notification soon after closing the book.

After immersing yourself in the study of the Retrogression System’s history, you have not only met the minimum requirements for acceptable knowledge, but have exceeded the knowledge of even the most dedicated of Keepers.  As a result, you have gained credit for completing the Retrogression History course, as well as gained another Applicable Trait.

Scholar – Comprehension speed of written text is increased by 25%.  This trait can be upgraded.

Bax wasn’t sure that he necessarily needed an extra 25% increase in his comprehension speed, as he was already pretty fast – but he wasn’t going to complain about a new Trait.  What was more important after the notification faded from his view was that he had completed his first course required for his Keeper Training Task.

Current Tasks:

Keeper Training – [1/7 Courses Complete] (See more)

Keeper Tower Completion – [0/50 Floors Cleared]

With confirmation that what he was doing was working, Bax picked up another book, this time one on Party roles and mechanics.  He was immediately drawn into the different roles that each Class played inside of their individual Parties, and the book was over before he knew it.  At the end, he couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t have a Class yet, but then he remembered that he had to be authorized by a Guide to acquire one.  He couldn’t help but think that it would’ve been nice to have one before he Leveled-up so much, especially when another book taught him that Classes required someone to pass certain thresholds in order to advance them in Level. However, once he learned more about these thresholds, he wasn’t sure if it would’ve made much of a difference.

In short, a “threshold” was like experience for the Class, but instead of earning a specific amount of experience for killing something, the only thing the Class looked for was the Level of the target killed.  For instance, at personal Level 1, he would need to kill something at the same Level or higher to gain one point toward his threshold; once he killed the 5 Level 1 or higher targets required, his Class would advance to Level 2 – but only when he increased his personal Level to 2, as well.  Otherwise, it would be put on hold until he advanced his Level.   

Most people didn’t need permission to choose a Class, and while they could change it at any time, it was this threshold issue that made it difficult to adapt to the Class change once someone was at a higher personal Level.  That was because, when changing a Class, they would be reset down to Class Level 1, and while they would retain some of the spells and abilities of their previous Class with a reduced effectiveness, they would be much weaker without a higher-Level Class to go with their personal Level.  To demonstrate, the book he read had the example of a Level 50 Adventurer resetting their Level 50 Class to something else, but in order to raise the new Class Level to Level 2, he would have to kill 5 Level 50+ targets. This might not be a big problem if they had a competent Party to help them, but if they only had a fraction of the power that their previous Class provided them, they would likely be the equivalent of dead weight until their Class gained at least 15 to 20 Levels. 

All of this information was fascinating to Bax as he absorbed it all, especially when he looked through some books that had some strategies for maximizing the benefits of adapting to multiple Classes early in their development.  One idea was to spend the first 5 personal Levels switching Classes until they had acquired at least 1 spell or ability that they could use forever after that, as it would give them some extra options once they picked their final Class that they would keep for a much longer length of time.  There were tables describing the statistical probability of maintaining any Class spells and abilities during Class changes, as well as their power loss, and while he memorized them, he didn’t really pay too much attention to them.

Why?  Because he realized that even if he gained a Class right now, he would have to kill Level 1302 targets in order to hit the threshold to raise the Class.  The likelihood of that happening was poor, especially considering that the highest-Level Guide in the Co-op had been Harvin at Level 598.  Later, when he started branching out into books regarding monsters, Remnants, and Aberrations, he learned that some of the highest-Level monsters that had ever been recorded being seen only hovered around the Level 1,000 range, so it was even more unlikely once he got a chance to help out a world or two.

Mentally shrugging, as there wasn’t much he could do about it now even if he wanted to, he figured that he might still be physically strong enough to handle any threats without even having a Class.  There was no use dwelling on what might have been, when he could focus on the future.

Over the next few days, he spent the majority of it inside the Archives reading the books inside of it one after another, with only temporary pauses as he rushed to the Meal Hall to stuff his face full of food before returning.  He didn’t sleep at all, as he didn’t feel tired at all; one of the books mentioned that, as one ascended higher in Level, the need for sleep was dramatically reduced to only needing an hour or so every week, but he hadn’t quite felt the need to yet. Food was still necessary, and a lot of it, too, as it felt like his body was burning calories at a high rate in order to fuel his physical speed and mental comprehension. 

Eventually, he managed to consume the knowledge of enough books on Classes/Party Roles and Mechanics to fulfill the requirements for that specific course, followed by the course on Monsters, Remnants, and Aberrations.  Once he finished learning about the information needed for Weapons and Armor/Item Management, which was a unique glimpse into how magical energy was imbued into materials to change its very nature – which he mentally translated as altering its molecular structure in ways that modern technology back on Earth was unable to do because of the addition of magical influences – he received another notification.

After immersing yourself in the study multiple subjects, you have not only met the minimum requirements for acceptable knowledge for 4 different courses, but have exceeded the knowledge of even the most dedicated of Keepers and Guides.  As a result, you have gained credit for completing these 4 courses, as well as upgraded your Scholar Trait.

Revered Scholar – Comprehension speed of written text is increased by 100%.  This trait can be upgraded.

Again, it wasn’t that Bax was disappointed with his newly upgraded Trait, but he didn’t think it would help him all that much.  He was already tearing through the Archives at a speed that was ridiculous, but once he started back into researching knowledge on the Keepers’ Tower – as well as other Towers and Dungeons that could be found on the System’s worlds – discovered that it made a significant difference in his reading speed by nearly cutting in half the time required to go through a single book.  In less time than he expected, he’d finished off yet another course that was part of his training, which only left 2 more to finish off before he tackled the Tower itself. 

Unfortunately, the pair of courses that were left – Magical Resonance Instruction and Physical Aptitude Training – couldn’t solely be completed by reading information in a book.  While he did find multiple texts describing different approaches to developing one’s magical resonance and their Unity stat as well as exercises and routines necessary to improving one’s physical aptitude, he intuitively knew that book learning wasn’t enough to satisfy the requirements to pass the courses. 

In other words, he would have to physically and magically do everything described in the books.

Thankfully, given that his physical stats were so high, he took to the Physical Aptitude Training like a fish to water.  He destroyed one of the obstacle courses his first time in it as he wasn’t quite used to regulating his speed and strength at that point, but thankfully it seemed to magically reform after a few hours.  By that time, however, he had already moved to another training room and a different obstacle course, so he was able to start on it after deliberately taking his time getting through.  His once envious looks at the other Keeper recruits on the course were forgotten once he made it through the first time with flying colors, even if it was slower than he liked; he spent a full day repeatedly running it and incrementally increasing his speed each time, as he gradually became accustomed himself to his change in stats.

Another day’s worth of time saw him practicing martial forms and basic hand-to-hand defensive strategies, which was tough without a sparring partner, but he managed to figure it out well enough.  Anything more advanced, especially with actual weapons, was almost impossible for him to translate from book instruction to physical movement; it wasn’t necessarily a failure of the book itself, but there was some things that really needed a Guide to teach someone, either through demonstration or personal instruction. 

Still, it was his understanding – at least from what the books he read hinted at – was that as long as he knew how to nominally defend himself from a monster when all other options were exhausted, that would count toward his Physical Aptitude Training course.  It made sense, he supposed, as someone who wasn’t planning on being on the front line – such as a Gnome or an Elf – couldn’t be expected to be an expert in wielding a sword, though it couldn’t hurt if they wanted to learn how to do just that.

After 3 full days of throwing himself around the training facilities, running obstacle courses until he could practically do them with his eyes closed at nearly his fasted speed, and demolishing a number of training dummies, only for them to reform a few hours later, he finally got a notification indicating that he’d met the minimum requirements for his Physical Aptitude Training course. 

That just left Magical Resonance Instruction, which was much more difficult than he had expected.  The first thing he did was spend nearly a full day using different exercises he read about – many of which were taught to him during his first experience with the course – to raise his Unity up to 10, but that was where he hit a wall.

It turned out that most spells and abilities, which were needed to increase his Unity even further, were locked behind Classes.  The Unity that the stat referred to meant two main things, he discovered.  The first was a connection between a person and their Mana, which he had developed as far as it could go; the second, and most influential portion of the stat, was a “unity” between their Mana and their Class, as personal Mana tended to take on the characteristics of a particular Class.  It was this unity, this influence, that allowed someone to maintain certain Class spells and abilities even after changing Classes, as a portion of their Mana would always have that influence, though since it was a much reduced amount compared to their current Class, this was why such spells and abilities were weaker.  Fortunately, having multiple influences on Mana didn’t seem to eat into the effectiveness of a person’s current Class, or at least, it hadn’t been documented as being detrimental. 

But what that ultimately meant for Bax was that, until he got a Class and was able to use Class-specific spells and abilities, he wouldn’t be able to improve his Unity stat.  The books he read referenced the fact that Guides would authorize the use of different Classes during this course, so that the Keepers could develop their Unity stat with the help of different types of spells and abilities, but that was still closed to him.  The best he could do, to at least complete the minimum requirements of the course, was to learn the few spells that weren’t Class-based.

Having never cast a spell or utilized his Mana for anything before, it took him nearly a week of experimentation – after easily memorizing the specific spell structures from the book on non-Class spells – to finally cast his first spell.  Once he figured out exactly how to manipulate his Mana and feed it through a precise mental projection, using only the exact amount required, the process finally clicked for him.  Less than an hour after that, he had unlocked a total of 5 different spells, each of them what he would consider “utility” spells rather than something to be used in a fight.

Fingertip Flame

Light Sphere

Moisture Condensation

Stone Shift

Mend Wound

Each spell required 50 Mana to cast, a cost which he learned was actually quite high, and what they did was useful but either weak or slow compared to what someone with a relevant Class could cast.  Fingertip Flame was exactly what it sounded like, as a flame would appear on the tip of his finger, which was enough to light a fire or even cook something if he held it up against it long enough; against a hostile target, unless they stopped moving and let him hold the flame against them for a minute or more, then it wouldn’t really do much more than make them warm.

Light Sphere created a decently bright sphere of glowing light in the palm of his hand; if it was much brighter, it might be able to blind someone, but as it was, it was a more of a gentle glow to help see in dark areas.  Moisture Condensation took any humidity in the air and condensed it into a spot of his choosing, which he could then drink or use to douse a fire – but it was far from his idea of sending out streams of high-powered jets of water that he originally thought casting spells would be like. Stone Shift was actually quite impressive, as he could designate a portion of stone or dirt to move, though it happened very slowly and could only affect a small bit.  The book he learned it from told him it was typically used by farmers to help plow fields or for Adventurers who might have been trapped by a cave-in or something similar.

Lastly, Mend Wound sounded great on paper, but the extremely weak healing spell worked very slowly and only healed a surface wound a bit before it had to be recast.  If he were back on Earth, he would equate its effectiveness to speeding up the healing of a bad cut from 3 days to only a couple of hours; that was still good, but not nearly what he would expect a real healing Class would be able to do.

He was worried if all his studying and the learning of these non-Class spells would be enough to fulfill the requirements for the course, but after he learned the final one, he finally got the notification he was hoping for.

Congratulations!  You have managed to fulfill the minimum requirements for the Magical Resonance Instruction course and have completed all of the courses necessary for the Task, Keeper Training. Do you wish to continue your training to surpass the minimum requirements in Physical Aptitude Training and Magical Resonance Instruction?

Relieved, Bax said out loud, “No.”

Keeper Training Task is complete!

You now have access to the Keepers’ Tower to challenge your next Task, The Keepers’ Tower.  Please consult your assigned Guide to receive instructions and gather your Party after being assigned your Class and role.  When you are ready, enter the Tower and start your climb to the top!

Keepers’ Tower Floors Cleared: 0/50

Finally!  Bax was eager not only to get out of the Co-op, but to actually challenge himself. As much as he enjoyed his studying and practice, he was bored enough to even face dangerous monsters at that point – something he never thought he would admit when he first arrived.  With an eagerness that nearly made him choke as he shoveled food into his face inside the Meal Hall, he finished a quick meal and sprinted toward the Keepers’ Tower entrance doors.